


Remade in the Light of Stars

by hhavenh



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Religion, aftermath of RD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2018-12-12 00:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11725578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhavenh/pseuds/hhavenh
Summary: If asked...and if he felt like giving answer...there isn't an exact moment Volke can pick, no single day in his life that can really explain how he ends up like this. But there are instances he can blame, memories too choked in things he tries not to name, that paint the picture far better than he could ever hope to.---The world is almost unchanged after the goddess falls. It's a difficult tonic to swallow for some.





	1. What Remains

~[hhavenh](http://hhavenh.tumblr.com/post/158086323466/for-a-prompt-and-ferarepair-week2k17-what-remains)

 

The door is already cracked when Volke gets to a well-known balcony. Not unusual, except for the smoke that wisps past. It smells of pine and spice, the color too faint to tell in the luminance of a dying moon.

The light inside is sparse, too weak and flickered to be made by a lantern. It glows golden on the stones of a gated fireplace and softens the blunt edges of the bed posts. In this sort of light the tapestry beside the wardrobe could be mistaken for a thing of value, instead of a frayed mess of dull color and broken threads. A mess that sags further every day in evidence of a lazy craftsman.

Not sure why it’s kept, when Volke knows Geoffrey could afford better. That he doesn’t only speaks to a different sort of laze. Or maybe just an inability to be done with that past its prime.

A flaw, but one Volke is willing to forgive.

Two steps left of the balcony -shut now and latched- and Volke kneels to loosen the laces of his boots. The mud was washed away before he started climbing the southern side of the castle but they’re still too damp to keep on. Right now, at least, when he doesn’t intend to be on his feet much longer. Not until morning, and maybe later. Can’t be sure, when it isn’t really his decision to make.

The wardrobe makes a noise when opened -he knew it would- but Volke doesn’t stop the swing of the door. The sound grates against his ear, as does any made without absolute need. It’s an unnecessary announcement of his presence, a beacon to any with the ears to hear. Undeniable, every fact, but this is…

a compromise.

Not the only one Volke has made for this man, but still more than he’s offered any other.

A man still not in sight, until Volke follows the quiet flicker of candlelight to the back of the chamber. The pine scent becomes understood, but then Volke has far more questions than he does answers.

Not all that often he sees Geoffrey on his knees. It’s…

disquieting.

“Go on,” Geoffrey says when their eyes meet, low and irate. Already in a mood, and Volke hasn’t even said a word. “Have a laugh, get it over with.”

Can see why someone would, but Volke isn’t always that callous. “…Didn’t know you were religious.”

But it makes sense that he is.

Strict and straight laced, as hard on himself as a freshly forged blade is after the quench. He’s too generous with his time and attention, righteous in the way that most of Ashera’s faithful have forgotten. Geoffrey wears his knighthood like a monk will their smock, both dedicated to paths in life that don’t really matter anymore.

But that’s assuming they ever did.

Geoffrey doesn’t respond. Just turns back to his candle and sits quiet as incense drifts lazily past his face.

Volke peels his gloves off and moves across floors that are starting to feel like the home he’s never had. He unthreads his belt and lets go every dagger. His jerkin comes off damp on the outside but he’s dry beneath. Still chilled, but that’s not so uncommon. He’s colder after every buckle is undone, as well as every brace. His wrists are sore. Expected. They always ache in autumn rain, but he can usually convince a certain someone to distract him from the pain.

Or Geoffrey will just take it upon himself and close warm fingers around each wrist in shackles far more preferred than any Volke has ever worn.

Dangerous to think like that. But so is indulging in this…

familiarity.

Not the exact word for what exists in the space between he and this man, but it’s still the only one Volke can use without feeling a fool.

It’s six steps from the wardrobe to the chest at the end of the bed -a solid framed behemoth that never creaks- and then another twelve to where the fireplace sits gated. Flames snap and crackle unseen in a language all their own while Volke hangs his scarf off the edge of the mantle to dry. Eight steps from there to the corner furthest from the window, and he can drop to the floor at Geoffrey’s side.

Volke doesn’t sit on his heels, or fold his hands on his knees like custom demands. Won’t, when he always thought prayer was a waste of time even before Ashera withered away into starlight and dust.

Makes finding a shrine here all the more strange, when he knows Geoffrey saw the same.

A lone stick of incense smolders on the edge of a corner bench. Ashera’s likeness stares out from an oaken slab centered on top. It isn’t an accurate portrayal -too round of a chin, dimpled cheeks and gentle eyes- but that’s not something Volke can really hold against the artist. The rest of the shrine is as simple and rustic as any outside of Begnion. The slab is surrounded by autumn red maple leaves and curls of birch bark. The smell of pine needles is potent enough to make his nose burn.

He waits, but the silence stretches. Volke tracks a slow curl of smoke towards the ceiling and wets his chapped lips, “You get anything out of this?”

Hasn’t worded that right.

Volke knows in the space of a breath, familiar as he has become with Geoffrey’s moods. He can see where broad shoulders have gone rigid, and how Geoffrey’s nostrils are flared at the end of his narrow nose. There’s something cutting and irate brewing on his tongue, something brash that will end this night before it’s even begun.

It isn’t often that Volke cares to right impressions. That he tries now is another compromise, an attempt to bridge the distance between his own indifference and Geoffrey’s inevitable temper. “Does this…”

But nothing comes to mind.

Nothing that Volke can manage to make verbal. Not in any way that isn’t sure to add more fuel to a fire he didn’t even mean to light.

“Does it what?” Geoffrey doesn’t snap so much as he grits the words out from between clenched teeth.

Volke exhales through his nose and looks away from Ashera’s false face. Boots won’t be dry, or anything else, but this won’t be the first time he’s managed to talk himself out of some company.

Doesn’t matter.  

It shouldn’t, at least.

It shouldn’t, but sour dissatisfaction still lodges in his chest as if a stone and makes his lips press thin. His aching wrists ache more when his fingers curl down over each palm. It’s usually a mistake to open his mouth, a fact Volke’s known most his life, but there’s something so in-cautious that takes hold of him in Geoffrey’s presence.

That wasn’t always the case.

Volke almost lets humor curve his lips, not that he’s really got any reason to be amused. There’s a conversation he’s had with himself too many times flaring to life behind his eyes. An old argument that he used to listen to, that reminded him of why letting someone else’s space become his own was a stupid idea.

Geoffrey makes it hard to care.

He makes it hard to see the sense in rising before the sun, in being gone before dawn floods the city with light. To go even a few days without his touch is an irritant, a few weeks a trial. Volke used to spend entire seasons outside of Crimea and now he wastes so much of his time on contracts barely worth the gold. The Fireman isn’t even a mantle he wears that often anymore -it wasn’t always his anyway- when it’s simpler to just be another faceless rogue roaming Melior.

Crimea really is a waste of his time. Of his capability. There’s little of interest in chasing bounties or selling scandal, and few in this backwater country can even afford his usual rates. Southern contracts pay more, always have and always will, but even the promise of gold allures less than it should. It’s almost less necessary, when Volke doesn’t have the same expenses as he used to. Geoffrey won’t take any gold for a meal, shared or otherwise, and got as frosty as he is tonight the one time Volke tried to pay for use of his bed and bath. And he always gets some sort of satisfaction from presenting Volke with things that aren’t really needed. A sheath sewn in dark leather that straps far more securely than the one it replaced. His boots resoled when one heel was scorched by slipping too near a Kukaku lava vent.

Single instances of many. All a chorus of denial that ring out whenever Volke has himself convinced that there is nothing between them but shared experience and flesh.

It’s stupid, but sometimes he’s so sure that can’t be all.

Not unless Geoffrey lies with his smiles, and with the way his eyes go so barely soft when their gazes meet across a crowded room. And with how he’ll so easily let Volke be at his back, as if it wouldn’t take but the briefest moment to put a blade between his ribs or jerk a garrot taut to his throat.

Depressing thoughts for a disappointing night, and Volke’s not even sure who’s at fault.

Doesn’t matter.

Geoffrey can have his shrine, his anger. Both will burn out by morning. Volke won’t be here, but that’s fine. He’d rather stay - he’d always rather stay- but sometimes this is just the way it has to be. Even if that means Volke has to wade back into the wet chill of an autumn night.

He’ll be cold. His wrists will ache more than they do already. He won’t sleep enough to even bother trying, but that’s all expected at this point. Preferred even, to watching Geoffrey simmer. Not how this night was supposed to end, but there’s nothing for it. There’s no reason to stay.

Volke’s gotten pretty decent at figuring out when he’s not wanted.

Whatever. He’ll try again tomorrow, or maybe he won’t. Might wait a few days, just to bleed a little spite. Just to make Geoffrey miss him.

Volke almost smiles again. Humor that isn’t.

It’s always been obvious that he’s getting the better deal out of this familiarity. Still can’t put a finger on what caught Geoffrey’s eye, if anything did, but there’s nothing fair in this situation. If Volke is missed -he knows he won’t be- it will only be because of what tonight could have been. Heat and skin, that’s all he can offer.

It’s something Volke doesn’t know how to name, being the short end of the stick. It’s something he’s sure Geoffrey’s never been. Not with the shape of his face and the broadness of his shoulders, not with the way charm drips off him like rain does the castle walls. He’s more than a handsome face, a depth to him that even Volke doesn’t so often get to see. Geoffrey’s a rock that could part a river, a pillar that bears more burden than could ever be his share. He’s sturdy hands and effortless strength, and quiet whispers meant only for Volke’s ears.

He’s so much more than anyone could name… and so much more than Volke’s ever had before.

Be nice to keep it that way.

Which means Volke has to leave. Before one temper becomes two, and things unmeant become those that can’t be unsaid.

He even tries to -dissatisfied and on the edge of spite- but then Geoffrey takes his hand.

It’s an expectant reach. Without hesitation, as if refusal doesn’t even occur to him. Geoffrey curls his fingers around the side of Volke’s palm and pulls until he has it in his lap. His other hand joins the first, and then Volke is held in a firm grasp that only occasionally makes unease skitter across his ribs.

This isn’t one of those times. Not when this is Geoffrey’s compromise, one made as silently between them as has been every other.

Tonight isn’t the best example, but Geoffrey isn’t really a difficult man. He’s got his quirks -some more endearing than others- but there’s little about him that ever gives Volke much reason to complain. He might get aggressive sometimes, but even then only at the height of his temper. Temper often warranted, but the anger festers long after it should. It clings to the corner of each eye and throbs from a vein that snakes down the side of his jaw. Volke has felt it pulse against his palm, against his fingers and lips. He hasn’t any other solution when Geoffrey comes to him already baited by another’s careless words; and nothing to offer in distraction but himself.

Trying to talk to him doesn’t usually help. It didn’t tonight. Volke just… doesn’t know how.

But even if he doesn’t, the cause is never so difficult to figure. It’s easy to imagine Geoffrey nettled into a corner, made defensive and surly by comments on his loyalty to a goddess long dead.  Only a handful in Melior know that truth, not that it really matters who put him on edge. Might’ve been his sister, maybe Bastian. Probably not either of his lords. Volke might not have much of an opinion of Crimea, but both Ridells weigh their words more carefully than most. And the queen more so in Geoffrey’s presence than she did years prior.

At least when Volke has been in the position to overhear.

Geoffrey doesn’t look away from his shrine, but his words aren’t as clipped, “Does it what?”

He’s trying, and that’s usually enough for Volke to try too. “You know she’s not there.”

Geoffrey’s jaw gets tight again. “Do I?”

He does. He does in the way that the rest of Melior does not. He walked those shimmering halls and knew the horror of Ashera given flesh. He was blessed in chaos, was tied in threads of golden light that burned hotter than the bluest flame, that scalded and twisted down beneath the skin until holy light glowed from every pore. He shined as if a fallen star, one come from on high to face the wrath of the newly woken sun.

In this way, if in no other, he and Volke are the same.

Sometimes Volke can still see that light. Glinting for a moment along the arch of his wrist, glowing like feathery tendrils of sunlight in the corner of his eyes. Holy and unreal where his flesh bruises, and more often flashing along the edge of a blade that he doesn’t bring out so much these days.

Geoffrey has that same light. He’s never spoken about it, never even made mention, but sometimes he sits up in the morning and his shoulders shine golden from more than just the sun. He will turn and smile with lips that whispered possession against Volke’s skin brief hours before, and starlight will gleam like a thousand diamonds from his forever blue eyes.

Volke glances at Ashera again, at the silver-tipped wings that arch from her either side. “You should.”

Geoffrey’s thumb begins to move, a slow sweep over Volke’s knuckles that makes him force down a sudden urge to pull away.

It’s…

it’s too much, sometimes, when Geoffrey touches him like this. Too slow, too soft, too much of everything that Volke just doesn’t know how to handle. Makes his stomach twist. Anticipation he doesn’t want, a gut feeling that is  _so_   _sure_  something far worse will follow on the heels of this unearned gentleness.

…Volke tries not to think like that anymore.

There’s no reason to. Those chains are long broken, any that ever made him ache now little but bones baking in the desert heat.

They don’t matter -Volke won’t let them matter- so he holds still. He stays loose, quiet. He counts each second that it takes a drip of wax to reach the candle’s base, and exhales in the most pathetic sort of relief when Geoffrey finally speaks. “Do you understand a single thing that happened in that tower?”

And before Volke can answer, before he can say it doesn’t matter-.

“Because I don’t.” Geoffrey’s thumb stills. His brows pinch. “I… sometimes I’m so sure it didn’t happen. That it was a terrible dream. I see the devoutness of the people, I watch as they beseech the goddess for a good harvest, for fortune and health, and I…” His grip tightens. And then he sighs, a heavy sound that moves his shoulders and makes the candle flicker.

Volke waits, and really isn’t sure he should, but after a breath he finally convinces his fingers to curl down over the hand beneath his own.

It’s…

an attempt.

Can’t call it more than that. Volke doesn’t hold tight. He doesn’t even try to thread his fingers through Geoffrey’s, or do anything else that this…familiarity might allow. He just waits, silent and still, and has to look away when Geoffrey glances down at their hands with such devastatingly gentle eyes.

That softness isn’t so false on him. Not the way it is Ashera.

“And then I listen to Elincia speak benedictions she does not mean, and watch as my knights find every excuse to skip mass. Even my sister speaks about the goddess with so callous a tongue, and I-.” He shows his teeth. His hands are tight enough to make Volke’s fingers prickle in encroaching numbness. “I know that it isn’t a dream. I know that the goddess has truly fallen… and that I had a hand in her undoing.”

“You had a hand in your own survival,” Volke corrects, because nothing else actually matters.

Geoffrey keeps his frown. “It wasn’t that simple.”

“It was exactly that simple.” That he thinks otherwise is just…

unnecessary.

The goddess didn’t deserve his attention in life, and that didn’t change after she was ended.

But Geoffrey doesn’t think about the world the way it actually is, in terms of reality and survival. He wouldn’t have invited death on the drenched steps of Delbray if he did, or pretend like mercy and honor actually hold any true bearing in life. It’s another flaw, one so much more difficult to forgive. It’s a flaw shared by his sister, a lack of self-preservation that Volke honesty cannot understand. She doesn’t matter, but to see Geoffrey exist in that same carelessness… to hear his guilt at striking out at one that would have brought an end to everything he is, everything that ever was…

“She died, or you did,” Volke continues. He’d like to reach for his pipe, to diffuse the sudden sweep of tension climbing his throat. He would try, but the wardrobe is too far away from Geoffrey’s hands. “It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.”

“… Are you so sure she died?”

Volke doesn’t respond, because he has nothing to say. That Ashera might have survived… it has no bearing on his present.

And it shouldn’t have any on Geoffrey’s either.

“I don’t understand how we can still be here.” Geoffrey whispers, as though a secret he’s embarrassed to share. “How can the sun continue to rise, how can seasons pass and life continue on just the same… if she does not yet live?”

A question Volke won’t give much thought to. He breathes. He bleeds. His heart beats and his eyes see. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t care how.

It just is, but that’s not something Geoffrey would really want to hear.

“That why you pray?” Volke asks. “In case she’s there?”

Hasn’t worded that right. Again. Volke can hear the unmeant judgment.

But Geoffrey doesn’t get waspish. “Even were the goddess no more, she would still deserve my attention.”

She wouldn’t, but Volke won’t say that. Can’t, when he doesn’t either. “You think she’d care for it?”

Geoffrey finally loosens his grip, “Doesn’t matter.” He turns, and Volke can’t tell if it’s candlelight or a dark god’s conviction that glints down the curve of his cheek. “I exist. I breathe and live. I have a home and family and comrades. I have…”

It’s so hard to meet Geoffrey’s eyes when he says things like this. Not that he even really needs to. It’s too clear what he means, with the way his fingers have threaded up through Volke’s from the bottom. And how his other hand molds over the top of Volke’s wrist, so warm and heavy, so-, so  _protective_  that another stone lodges in Volke’s chest and makes it hard to breathe.

Geoffrey really doesn’t need to say it, but he does.

Of course he does. “I have you.”

And…

and Volke can’t. His eyes skirt to the right. The hairs along his arms prickle and rise. A forever unwanted heat blossoms across the back of his neck. He  _hates_  this -more than he does anything else about himself- but that doesn’t stop him from needing to hide. It doesn’t halt the stupid flush that’s crawling up his throat and sweeping to every corner of his face.

Volke doesn’t respond. He can’t. Even if this unasked for assurance is making everything inside go so tight and satisfied, even if every half-formed doubt this evening spawned just burned away like a taper in oil, even if he wants to give something,  _anything_ , back…

Volke just can’t.

So instead he lets Geoffrey keep his hand, and hopes that’s enough to convince him of the same.

Maybe it is. Geoffrey’s thumb starts to sweep again, and he’s staring back at his shrine when Volke scrapes together enough courage to look. “… I appreciate,” Geoffrey says, in that earnest way of his that is always so impossible to doubt. “If not for her allowance, if not for her gift of life, I… I would not have all the blessings I do.”

Volke isn’t a blessing. He-, he’s just so far the opposite. In every possible way.

He doesn’t say that, and Geoffrey speaks again before he can decide to try. “I appreciate,“ Geoffrey repeats, "as I think we all do, in some way…I just wish we hadn’t made her doubt that.”

"Maybe she shouldn’t have made you doubt her.” Callous, but fact. There are few things in life Volke wastes regret on, and Ashera will never be one of them.

Geoffrey sighs through his nose and drops his eyes. His thumb slides over a scar that separates Volke’s first and second knuckle. “Do you really think she’s gone?”

“… Doesn’t matter.“ It’s not the answer he wants, but Volke continues before Geoffrey can complain, “But if she is there… she must see you.” Geoffrey looks up and it’s still a struggle to meet his eyes. Volke wouldn’t bother, but sincerity has rules that can rarely be sidestepped in this man’s presence. “And you’re really all the appreciation anyone could ever need.”

The most honest thing Volke’s been able to say in three days.

It’s also the most difficult. The most unnerving. He wants to pull away, to  _run_ , to find a shadow and exist as the same until his heart quits thrumming like the wings of a hummingbird. The anticipation is back. That dreaded certainty that Volke has misstepped, that something terrible builds in the silence, in the grip of Geoffrey’s hand and the shadow of his eyes. It’s an old fear, one that has no place here. One that is so  _foolish_ when Volke could be up and away before Geoffrey even lifted a hand.

Maybe it’s more foolish to ever think Geoffrey would.

But in a second, in a moment too brief to count, it doesn’t matter.

Geoffrey’s lips stretch and his eyes fall away in a rare shyness. The corner of each eye creases and his ridiculously straight teeth flash in the candlelight. Volke can breathe again. He can enjoy the pressure of Geoffrey’s fingers and the quiet pleasure in his face. Like this Geoffrey doesn’t look like the man that carries Crimea on his back. He looks beyond young. Without care, without worry. He looks like a man that has never known a harsh word, that has never suffered the misdeeds of another. A man untouched by betrayal and heartache, a man that could put the sun to shame by nothing but the warmth of his smile.

The biggest mistake Queen Crimea ever made was letting him go.

She’ll realize that one day.

She’ll realize, and she’ll want him back.

And on that day Volke will have to decide how selfish a man he really is.

But that day isn’t today. Geoffrey isn’t hers right now, and maybe he wouldn’t even want to be. He isn’t a general, isn’t a knight. He’s just himself, and he’s never been more prefect. Never so endearing, as when he drops his smiling eyes and chaffes his hand over the back of Volke’s wrist, “You’re always so cold.“

Apparently they’re done talking about anything deeper tonight.

Not that Volke will complain. He’s not sure if Geoffrey’s made peace with whatever he wants Ashera to be, and he won’t ask. No reason to when there’s no anger in Geoffrey’s face, little doubt left in the smoothness of his brow. He’s found some ease. Some give in the rigidness by which he lives so much of his life.

It’s nice to see. Even nicer knowing that Volke had some hand in that ease.

Stupid to pretend that’s true, but Volke can lie to himself about as easily as he can anyone else.

Either way, it’d be nice to hold onto that ease. So only because Geoffrey will be amused -and maybe because Volke likes to- he uncrosses his legs and leans his body sideways, until he’s held up on Geoffrey’s shoulder and tipping his head back to meet eyes the color of endless blue summer. "Plan on warming me up?” It’s about as plain as Volke can be without heat sweeping back up his throat and face.

But then he just can’t help it. Not when Geoffrey looks at him with those summer sky eyes and his handsome face broadens in a return of his smile. All the weight finally falls away from his face and-, and he just  _glows_. Holy light shines from the hollow of his throat, from the corners of his lips and every single strand of his hair.

He is a star once more. One fallen for no other reason but to take Volke in his arms and chase away the midnight chill. “Would you like me to?”

Why does he have to ask?

Why does he always  _insist_  on making Volke be verbal with this-, with whatever it is they have? It’s so unneeded, so  _aggravating,_ so…

so unnerving.

But Volke could walk around it. He could deflect, or take a stab at indifference and watch the quiet pleasure fade from Geoffrey’s face. He could take his hand back and lean away, just to relieve the uncertain itch slithering up his spine.  Or he could just crawl into Geoffrey’s lap right now and give answer with his lips, with the press of his fingers and the slide of his skin, until they were both past the patience for speech all together.

Options all, but then Geoffrey won’t look at him like this. Like he is a blessing, or something near. Something worth a smile.

Volke isn’t, but tonight he wants to pretend. He wants to know the warm protection of Geoffrey’s fingers around each wrist and lay back as whispered affection in kissed up his throat. He wants to watch broad shoulders glow golden in the morning sun and see starlight shine like a thousand diamonds from Geoffrey’s forever blue eyes.

But maybe most… maybe what Volke always wants, is to know the sweet satisfaction of Geoffrey asking him to stay another day.

“…Yes.”

And that’s enough.

For once Geoffrey doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t make this any harder. He just holds Volke’s hand tight in his own and pushes to his feet, lips still spread in a smile too terribly soft to be anything but sincere. He even puts out the incense, which Volke appreciates.

If the goddess does still exist -unlikely as that is- there are things about to happen the she really doesn’t need to see.


	2. Chapter 2

The day dies slowly.

The sun is gone, but what's left of the evening sky is still a mottle of greys and the coming night. There aren’t any stars. Usually aren’t on this side of autumn, so far north as Crimea sits. So muddled as the skies tend to be this time of year. The mountains are a line of broken teeth on the far side of the world. Colorless. Dulled by distance. Shadowed by tall clouds blacker than the sails that clog the straits of Gazaleah.

There's rain in the air. Maybe it won't be enough to make him ache.

The fire is lit, but there’s no heat. Not enough that he can really feel. The flames flicker as they should and the logs slowly crumble to ember and ash, but the warmth isn't there. It’s almost like the low flames and the grey skies have conspired to make his skin crawl and itch with the sort of bone white chill that will leave frost etchings on window panes.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Volke glances away from the lazy smolder of the fireplace, turning enough to see the open wardrobe on the far side of the room and the man standing beside it. There's a mirror hanging on the inside of the door, one that’s starting to show its age. The silver is speckled on the edges. Almost bronzed in the fire light. “…Tell you what?”

Geoffrey’s reflection gives him a narrow look, not that Volke’s done anything to deserve one. Not recently, at least. “Who I need to run through for putting you in a mood.”

He never would, but Volke doesn’t say that. Instead he takes another drag of his pipe and tries to enjoy the novelty of seeing Geoffrey in something that isn’t armor or riding leathers. A little difficult, given the distance, but Volke hasn't decided yet whether or not he'd like to be closer. “Assuming I’m in one.”

Geoffrey rolls his eyes and forces a comb through his thick hair. He’ll need to cut it soon, or start tying it back. Volke can't say which he’d prefer. “It’s dear that you think you aren’t.”

Not a point worth arguing, or an argument worth having. Not when Geoffrey looks like this; washed and shaved and buttoned up in a waistcoat Volke hasn’t seen before. Something with a different cut that might be fashionable, not that he actually knows. It shows off shoulders made stout by the habits of a soldier and draws the eye down the contour of Geoffrey’s chest. It certainly looks fashionable on him, but this is the sort of man that could go around in a cloth sack and still put the rest of the world to shame.

Volke sighs to himself and returns to the fire. That’s just so…

telling.

Foolish, actually, but one doesn’t have to exclude the other.

“Hey.” There’s a frown in Geoffrey’s voice -there usually is- that Volke doesn’t turn to see. “What’s the matter with you?”

Nothing. Maybe everything. Volke isn't exactly sure why he feels like a piece of leather handled a dozen times too many. Like he’s flaying apart on the edges, or about to. Might be why he’s been holding himself as separate as he can tonight. Tucked in a chair and out of the way, as the only man whose company he can stand right now gets himself put together for some highbrow whatever.

“Volke?”

“...Just tired,” Volke decides, not that it's a lie. It’s the sort of tire he hates; an exhaustion that seeps through skin and bone and blood and encases his body whole in a lethargy that he never quite knows how to break. He feels useless, almost. As if a blade with an edge too brittle to make sharp.

“Tired,” Geoffrey repeats. He might sigh, but the distance and crackle of the fire make it hard to tell. “Wouldn’t be if you slept more than one night through at a time.”

He’s not wrong.

Volke’s not in the mood to pretend otherwise, or got enough energy on hand to believe his own lies. “…Been busy.”

Another sound comes from the wardrobe. One that’s hard to identify without turning back around. Volke could look, but that's just an invitation to witness the probable dissatisfaction first hand. Something to be avoided, when he can. “You’ve kept yourself busy, more like.”

It’s not that easy. Never that simple.

Volke could say that, but he’s not got the energy for that sort of conversation either. Not right now. Maybe never. “Not busy tonight.”

Either Geoffrey stills, or the first patters of rain swallow the sounds of his dressing. “…Did you want me to stay in?”

That’s…not a question Volke has any idea how to answer. He isn’t even sure what the correct answer is supposed to be. Yes, obviously, he’d like Geoffrey to be here. Yes, he wants to be able to just look over his shoulder and see him and know that there's nothing outside of these walls that he has to care on tonight. He wants his shadows and Geoffrey both. He wants to exist without being seen, wants to be without having to actually _be_ anything.

But it's rare, the times Volke ever has that allowance. The opportunity to be more faceless than he ever is with a mask. To be without cause, without purpose, gone from that niggling urge, that insistent razing ache that says _take have survive-._

But no. That-, he isn't that man anymore. Doesn't need to be…didn't ever want to be.

In the end it doesn’t matter what he wants. Not with Geoffrey’s recent habit of accepting silence as agreement. “It isn't that serious,” he says, with a flippant something in his voice that Volke still hasn’t quite figured out how to place. “There are far better things I could be doing tonight than rubbing elbows with the Crawford lords.” Maybe, but there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing. He’d have found an excuse otherwise, easy as that is for the man burdened with Crimea’s borders.

But Geoffrey didn’t. And he won’t, not when this is the sort of thing he’s been bred for. The kind of frilled engagement that proves a lord worth their crest. “I really don’t have to go,” he continues, dauntless in the face of Volke’s attempts at indifference. It’s safer not to meet his eyes at this point. To just keep staring at the flames as if there’s nothing else of interest in the room. “We both know I’ve only been invited to keep the table settings even.”

If that were the only reason then he wouldn’t have been asked at all.

Volke understands that, even if Geoffrey is too ignorant of himself to realize the same. Hard to understand how that’s even possible, when half the street falls over themselves to fawn at him when he passes. With the sort of attention he gets from the rank and file of Crimea’s aristocracy. The looks, the stares, the offers just this side of propositions.

There. Maybe that's the problem. Jealousy. Useless irritation that he could never follow, never be there to distract Geoffrey from the truths of what life could be like for a man of his station. What life should be like. Even a second cousin of Delbray’s duke has some prospects. Prospects better than a nameless rogue that can’t even muster the desire to make staying in seem like a worthwhile option.

Not that there’s any reason to. Volke can hardly stand his own company tonight. He isn’t cruel enough to make anyone else suffer the same.

“I hate these things,” Geoffrey says to the speckled mirror, so determined to handle both sides of a conversation that they really didn't need to have. “You know I'd never go out at all if I could help it.”

“…Shouldn’t,” Volke finally murmurs, when the silence stretches too long and the crackle of the fire starts to echo between his ears like judgment. He even turns, as if that bare show of attention will make up for the dull rasp of his words. “They’ll start calling you a hermit.”

Geoffrey’s reflection gifts him a grin, a brief thing of quick humor that creases the skin around his eyes and makes his too perfect teeth stand out starkly from his lips. It's strange to see when the rest of him is now so unfamiliar, so changed when done up in the trappings of the polished creature he was born to be. Tucked into his jacket, hair made less of a wind-tangled mess, his breeches and buckled boots as fitted and gleaming as expected of any lord.

He looks like a different man. A man Volke should have no reason to know.

Even with his familiar smile, with blue eyes that have shone on Volke like starlight, it's become difficult to look at him. Damning, almost. Evidence of something that Volke will give no name.

It doesn’t help that Geoffrey sounds just the same, nothing unknown in the low warmth of his voice, “I've been called far worse.”

He has. Of course he has. Crimea hasn’t been gone from the south long enough for the cattiness of court to have changed. Geoffrey might have his crest, might have bled more than any half of Crimea's statesmen, but he isn't the sort of lord with the pedigree that obligates respect. He's not the even the sort of man that insists on it. He'll smolder and show his teeth when treated like dirt, the way a soldier will, but neither do much in the eyes of Crimea's elite.

Geoffrey is just too quick with his words, with his temper. Neither serve him well in a place like Melior, in a political pit hardly better than the seat of the empire.

If he had substance beyond himself, a dowry, even a last name, he wouldn't be treated like he is. His sister is heir to something, worth given outside whatever favor that drips from Queen Crimea’s hand. It's only a scrap of land on the edge of Delbray that is more swamp than soil, but it is still far from nothing. Far more than Geoffrey can claim, and by nothing more arbitrary than birth.

He really is just a face to look at. A body in a chair, at least by the standards of his peers. No doubt he’ll be reminded of that fact a dozen times tonight. He might smile it away, he might snarl and be as nettled as he was weeks ago kneeling before a useless shrine, but neither will stop the snide murmurs. Nothing short of land will manage that. Nothing less than coin, than tangible worth, than marriage to someone with better blood than himself.

That’s the way of the elite, always has, but Volke’s never been so…irate by it. Never so tempted to give back some of the abuse Geoffrey’s been dealt and never tell him about it. Sometimes he feels violent enough to scale every wall to every lord that's ever given Geoffrey reason to frown and choke them on a wire.

Not often though.

Certainly not tonight.

“Imagine it,” Geoffrey says, still smiling. Still handsome and shaved and strange, and so far from the man that woke Volke a morning ago with the scrape of beard burn down his skin. “A place all my own, so far from Melior that I couldn’t hear the cathedral bells.” A cabin in the east hills, where the woodland marches right up to the coast. Close enough to smell the ocean salt on the wind, to hear the echoing bark of seals on still nights. A walk from a quiet cove to catch the salmon coming upstream every spring. Out of sight, out of mind, out of Melior. So removed from the rest of the world that they could forget anything even existed beyond the canopy of the woodlands.

Volke snorts to himself and taps out his pipe.

Apparently that’s the state he’s in tonight. Wool-gathering about some pretend place that will never be. A place Geoffrey would never truly want to be. A place even Volke wouldn’t be able to tolerate for more than a season. “... Wouldn’t be rubbing elbows with any lords that far from the city.”

“I wouldn't complain.” Geoffrey doesn't wink -maybe he’s cared to remember how much Volke hates that- but he looks like he'd like to. As if he's amused at himself, and sure that soon Volke will be too. “So long as I still have your company.”

For once, and maybe only because he still feels like flaying leather, Volke doesn't color. Doesn’t even feel like he could. As if there’s no blood left in his body. As if it’s all gone still.

But still or not, he'll be thought cold if he doesn't give something back. Cold in the way that doesn't make Geoffrey want to drag him near and chase away every chill with fingers and lips. He’ll frown, as is his want, until the skin down his jaw and temples tightens. Until dissatisfaction twists his lips and makes his shoulders hunch. As if bearing up under some new pain. Some new burden.

And that just…

isn’t something Volke can stomach. Not tonight.

So he leaves the almost warmth of the fireplace and the known haven of the chair, even though he shouldn’t. Knows better; that it’s a mistake to come near. To let himself be drawn even further into Geoffrey’s sphere when soon he’ll be alone. Still isn’t sure if he even wants him here, if he can stand the weight of another’s eyes. Of the silent expectation between any breaths beyond his own.

Geoffrey notes his approach in the mirror and flashes another grin as he turns. “May I help you?”

It should be shaming that it takes so little to please him. That Volke barely making an effort is enough to stave off the dissatisfaction that can dim his impossibly blue eyes so quickly.

Maybe it is a disgrace, but Volke doesn’t give the feeling much thought. Habit. One he’s always had, and one too old to break. “Not at the moment,” he returns, careful to avoid Geoffrey’s eyes. There’s nothing like the unflinching stare of a forthright man, of this man, that will unravel his attempts at normalcy so completely. So instead he steps to the side and picks at imaginary lint on the sleeve of Geoffrey’s jacket. Just to be near. To see if he even wants to be near.

The jacket isn’t new, an almost black blue that shines like a secret under candlelight. Something feathery curls around his collar and cuffs in glossy embroidery the color of nightshade, fine and delicate and full of the sort of minute detail that took more patience to thread than Geoffrey’s ever spent in his entire life. It's a decent jacket. Respectable, and the only one Geoffrey ever wears even though there’s three more in his wardrobe. There’s nothing he’s ever so gentle with; be it his soldiers or his steed, or the lance he keeps tucked away in a black cabinet beside the bed.

That-, maybe that’s not right, when Volke knows exactly what it is to be stroked and caressed and held like he’s more than sharp blades and scarred skin. He isn’t -he’s almost sure he never was- but there's some sort of magic in Geoffrey’s hands. In his eyes and voice, something so different and so less understood than the golden remnants that sometimes shine from their flesh. It’s a magic that makes Volke not care…not even think...about how he must make Geoffrey lesser with every single touch.

Most nights, at least.

“…Crimea doesn't have that many handsome lords to spare,” Volke offers, as he tugs on the end of the jacket to force a wrinkle flat. He's gentle. As careful as he can convince his fingers to be. “...Be a wash if you didn't show.”

Geoffrey snorts again, finally finished with his cuffs, “It doesn’t count as a compliment if you insult my homeland in the process.”

…He doesn’t think Volke serious.

But why should he? Volke doesn't tell him often. Or maybe ever.

But it's impossible that Geoffrey doesn't know. He has eyes. A mirror. Not so long past he had a queen on his arm.

Probably could again, if he wanted.

Some days it’s hard to be sure that Geoffrey doesn't want that. That he doesn’t think about where he could be right now. Crowned. Throned. A man of true influence. One forever cloaked in silk and armored in the sort of silver refinement reserved for a higher breed of man than an overlooked son of Delbray. All things that Geoffrey deserves. All things he should have. That he could, if there weren’t someone leeching at his attentions like a temple blood-letter.

He could’ve been a king by now. A father.

But instead-.

“You’re supposed to laugh when I make a joke,” Geoffrey whispers, smiling again. “Some would consider it polite.” Another attempt at humor, one that any other night would make Volke roll his eyes and mutter something crass in return. Just to see Geoffrey give him a look so touched in resigned affection that something impossibly burning and bright comes alive in Volke’s blood. Not enough to make his wrists shine, to be reminded again that something otherworldly razed him whole in so many ways more than he can even begin to know, but still all he really needs to banish the uncertainties that spawn unendingly in Geoffrey’s absence.

“…You're handsome.” Volke means to say more. He does, and he tries, but a thousand words flash behind his eyes and he can’t figure out how to let a single one past his lips. “Very,” is all he can manage.

Geoffrey’s smile goes away, along with the creased pleasure of his summer sky eyes. His fingers are heavy on Volke’s wrist, the slide of his palm so close to too much. “…Are you alright?”

Volke doesn't know.

He doesn’t say that, not that he ever has to.

Geoffrey frowns with everything he is. His eyes, his lips, his brow and shoulders. Volke leans into him just to escape the sight. His eyes close, hands loose where they rest against Geoffrey’s waist. He’s still careful of creasing the jacket. He makes himself be.

He tries, that is, but then Geoffrey’s arms surround him with the sort of strength that makes his knees weak and his chest tight. With the kind of weight that some nights will make Volke forget that things exist in the world beyond the extent of this man’s powerful reach.

Why can’t tonight be one of those nights?

Why does he have to feel like this-, this wrecked incapable thing?

Geoffrey holds him closer, until his fingers are laced behind Volke’s back and his voice is a warm murmur above the pattering rain, “I can stay.”

His shoulder is so broad. So firm and unflexing beneath Volke’s jaw. “Go,” he says, even as he moves beneath the jacket and circles Geoffrey’s waist entire. It isn't often that he has the opportunity to have him so fully in his arms. Not unless they have something far different than conversation in mind.

Maybe that's what tonight lacks. What they need -what Volke needs- to stop feeling like this flat-edged creature of little worth.

But then again, maybe not.

Maybe he only wants to be held.

Just like this. Caged in strength, chained in the heavy warmth of Geoffrey’s arms, of his hands. Held against his chest, up against his heart, turned against his bare throat tightly enough to feel the feathery pulse of each beat. This is enough. To be near him, to be kept near.   

This is something to be earned though, and Volke isn't sure he could even pretend to be interested in the currency of touch tonight.

Geoffrey’s lips brush his ear when he presses a kiss against Volke’s hair. “I don't have to.”

But he wants to.

He'll have a lord on one arm and a lady on the other. Even if he’s not a man of land or means he’ll still find a way to enjoy it. He'll smile and laugh and dance the way he's expected to, the way he was born to. He won't want to come back to silence. To uncertain closeness. He won’t want to come back to whatever this is.

To whatever Volke is.

Volke drops his arms before he can be convinced not to. He slides a step away, but not before Geoffrey leans close enough to chase the chill from his lips. “Go,” Volke says again, but with a different voice. With one that doesn't sound like a flying scrap of a man on the edge of something he can’t even name. A voice that won't make Geoffrey feel badly about leaving him alone when Volke can't even convince himself that he wants him to stay. “Enjoy it. I won’t wait up.”

Geoffrey frowns as his arms fall, brows together, “You're staying?”

It’s immediate, the way cold suspicion collects in Volke’s gut and spreads like ice in his veins. “There a reason I shouldn't?”

That…that isn't what he meant to say. And even if it was, he'd never say it like that. So clipped, so harsh, so…

accusingly.

But Geoffrey just tugs his jacket back straight and returns to the mirror. “Only if you don't feel like dealing with the drunken boar I endeavor to become tonight.” He starts on his cravat and smiles to himself the way he always does whenever he thinks he's managed something clever. “See if those Crawford fools ever foist some second-string invitation on me again.”

Volke doesn’t retreat to his chair yet, arms crossed as he leans against the wardrobe. He doesn’t want to be touched again, not right now, but he can’t quite stand the thought of being so far away. “Then why go at all?”

“It’s-, I have to,” Geoffrey says, gesturing as if the vague wave of his hand could encompass the asinine obligation of nobility. “Well, no, I don’t. I don’t, but I do, you don’t-.” He mutters something and tugs his cravat free to retry the folds. “Just…it’s better if I show up and make a stir than if I’d rebuffed them outright. They might think I can’t hold my drink, but that’s far preferred to anyone accusing Uncle Sherman of having a recluse for a nephew.”

Goddess forbid.

“Quit,” Geoffrey says, even though Volke hasn’t made a sound. He looks amused again. “Go light your pipe. I’ll make sure some dinner is sent up if you actually plan on staying in.”

There’s really no place else to be. Not tonight, when the rain will be a downpour in another hour. “…Fine,” Volke decides, sullen in tone if only because that’s what Geoffrey expects of him after being told to do something. “Still not waiting up.”

Geoffrey looks away from the mirror with his brows high, “So you’ll stay the night? You swear?”

“…I might-.”

“Volke-.”

 _"I might,”_ Volke mutters, still playing at sullen. Still playing at indifference. Still trying as hard as he can to hold on to this normalcy until there’s no one else here to see how far he is from that tonight.

Geoffrey huffs at the mirror, “Good goddess, if you are gone when I get back, I'll-.”

“You'll what?” The words don't bite as much as they would any other night.

But Geoffrey just rolls his eyes again and continues making a mess of his cravat. “I will be so _extremely_ cross.”

Volke isn't sure why he smiles. It feels strange on his lips.


End file.
